


Tomorrow is just another day

by NianaiBell



Series: #ourtwoweeksofpositivity [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comfort, Crying, Gen, I can't write anything without some fluff, Lance Needs a Hug, Lance's family - Freeform, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Pre relationship Klance, Sad lance, Too Hard on Himself Lance, mentions of everyone, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 22:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15716139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NianaiBell/pseuds/NianaiBell
Summary: Day 3: PillowfortIn the midst of taking care of the universe, Lance gets some bad news and tries to cope. His team worries and someone has to remind him of his very important place in their universe.





	Tomorrow is just another day

**Author's Note:**

> Bluberri_pomchi on IG has a wonderful idea started for the current chaos in the VLD fandom. And since I don't art as much I wanted to participate with this little bit. Look for the tags #ourtwoweeksofpositivity to see the wonderful stuff everyone is creating.
> 
> Well we had happy times with the last one so let's get sad right? Honestly Lance goes through a lot on VLD and he deserves to be heard and held for a bit. So this is more cathodic for my Lance Feels than anything else I think. And once again I prove I'm bad at keeping deadlines and writing short things.

Very rarely had the metallic doors that led to Lance’s room intimidated Keith. There had definitely been a time when he wouldn’t have voluntarily come within 20 feet of his room without a damn good reason. But times had thankfully changed and he couldn’t deny that the reason that brought him here today was also a good reason.

Lance had received a transmission from Sam Holt recently. His abuelita had passed away.

No one had heard from Lance for the last two days.

Well, other than muffled grunts through the door and Hunk, who had managed to convince the boy to get something on his stomach before being turned away with weak lie of poor health from the Cuban boy. And frankly Keith was worried.

He knew the other well enough to know that he wasn’t going to do anything too dumb. Lance instead had a tendency to hold the weight of things he wasn’t actually responsible for onto his own tired shoulders, an impossible burden. Knowing how important his family was to Lance, Keith knew he’d probably blame and beat himself up for the completely unrealistic idea that he could’ve somehow prevented her death. He was more worried that Lance was isolating, letting all the thoughts in his head circle and whisper horrible things to himself. With no one there to snap him out of it, he feared that Lance was suffering far more than just grief for his abuelita.

So Keith glared at the metal sliding doors, willing them to open on their own, willing them to open so he could talk some sense into Lance. Knowing there would never be a response from the sentient doors that hid Lance from the warmth of his friends aboard the castle steadied Keith's reslove as he raised one gloved hand and rapped at the door twice.

As Keith expected, no response came from within. So he waited a breath and tried again, more confident in the knocks. Silence answered him and Keith clenched his teeth, worry crawling along his spine and up his neck, dousing him in cold.

“Lance. Come on man, it’s me.” Unintentional roughness colored his tone, worry and disuse bleeding together to leak more emotion than he meant to in his voice. Keith clicked his teeth, clearing his throat a bit, felt his chest and shoulders expand and contract on one deep breath and tried again.

“Hey man, no one has really seen you the last couple of days. We want to make sure you’re okay.”

Still no response and feeling like there was nothing to lose with no one else around to hear him Keith tacked on, “I want to make sure you’re okay.”

The silence was beginning to prick at Keith’s nerves and he felt his stomach twist at how badly Lance must be doing if he wasn’t even responding. His nerves were starting to fray and Keith was about three ticks away from simply breaking down the door.

Trying to keep the anxious tone out of his words and only partially succeeding Keith huffed, “Can you at least let me know you’re in there? I would look really dumb talking to an empty room. Cough or tell me to go away or something.”

There was heartbeat, two, in where Keith’s heart _sank_ , until he heard a faint groan of disapproval and a quiet and very empty sounding “ _Really Keith_?” from the otherside of the door. An unintentional hand came up to grasp at his shirt in relief before a long held sigh escaped his lips.

“Good to know Coran didn’t accidentally feed you to the space whales.” A chuckle of relief escaped him before he could think to hold it in. Quickly he added. “You didn’t say go away either.”

A pause. “Will you and the others leave me alone if you check on me now?”

“Maybe?” An unseen shrug.

“Not convincing Mullet.”

“I can talk to them but no guarantees. You know how Hunk is.” Keith could practically hear Lance rolling his eyes from the otherside of the door.

“Or I could just rewire the door to open anyways.”

“You wouldn’t. Also how?”

“Wanna find out?” Keith teased.

A huff from the other side. “Dude c’mon.”

Keith kneeled down, hand waving over a hidden panel at the bottom corner of the door and fingers expertly pushing patterns into the screen there. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Keith muttered halfheartedly, pressing the in the override command Pidge had taught him a couple of months ago.

“ _Keith_ ” The voice sound wary and had a bit of warning to it, which reminded Keith of his brief days at the Garrison. That tone had never stopped him before there and it wasn’t going to stop him now. A couple more taps and Keith smirked as the cold metal doors swooshed open.

Carefully inching his way in, Keith scanned the room to parse together how Lance was coping. The boy in question had buried himself deeply beneath the relative cover of his blankets, pillows stacked up around him and a blanket hanging from the ceiling down around the bed, Keith guessed by the position it was to block out the majority of the beam of overhead light.

Everything else about the room seemed untouched as if Lance hadn’t bothered with any of it for a while. His floors were bare, nothing on the beside resembling knick knacks or sentimental things. Only his slippers and a couple of shirts showed signs the room was even inhabited. Although Keith did spy a mostly empty glass of water and a half eaten plate of food, he’d guess courtesy of Hunk, on the ledge of Lance’s bedside nook. A muffled groan could be heard underneath the pile of blankets and pillows. Lance peeked out over the cover of blankets, not particularly glaring but no real emotion to his eyes either. Keith tried to keep his face mostly blank besides what he figured look like a comforting smile.

“I can’t believe you broke into my room. Where’d you even learn that? Coran would be upset if you’re tampering with his ship.”

Keith shrugged slightly, making his way over to sit at the very edge of the bed instead of hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room.

He looked sideways at Lance, gauging his reactions to things and grateful he wasn’t straight up pushing him out of the room. “Pidge was hacking into the ships mainframe for an experiment and the doors started opening and closing on their own. I asked her to teach me in case we ever get another phantom on the ship or get locked out again.”

Lance snorted halfheartedly. “Or to break into places to check in on me.”

Keith nodded. “That too. But I didn’t know that would be a thing.”

“You do know I’m not gonna do anything stupid right? I’m eating and drinking, showering even. I just can’t be around people right now.”

Keith remained silent. He really wasn’t very good at the people thing. He knew all of that but that hadn’t stopped him from needing to check in on Lance. Something was pulling at him to go check in on the pilot of the Blue Lion. It didn’t matter that he knew Lance was going to be physically okay but he was just as invested in making sure Lance was emotionally okay.

“I know. I just can’t explain why I had to see you.” Keith knew he was muttering and that he wasn’t really helping but he felt the bed shake slightly as Lance laughed.

“Smooth Keith.”

Knowing he was better at distractions anyways, Keith eyed the pillowfort, weighed whether or not he should provoke Lance and saying fuck it he leaned back onto his palms on the bed and sighed.

“This is a terrible pillow fort by the way.”

Lance shifted beside him, “Uh what?”

Keith nodded to where was the blankets had been tucked up. “I think your niece and nephew would’ve expected more from Uncle Lance’s pillowfort making skills.”

Lance rolled his eyes, still not ready to pick up on Keith’s obvious fight. “Um who invited you in? I didn’t and this is an attack on my space and dignity.” Keith laughed,

“Just saying. You could do better.”

Lance, completely over it with his own emotions anyways, sat up and glared. “You know what _Kogane_? I did not ask for this, I wanted to be alone. I don’t need you and your _lackluster pillowfort skills_ questioning my skills here.”

Keith turned towards him, issuing a challenging smile. “So what are you gonna do? Prove me wrong? Your niece and nephew would love it.” Lance groaned and smacked Keith with a pillow. Caught off guard, Keith fell backwards on the bed, eyes looking up into the painful bright of the overhead light. He squinted and deemed this was not appropriate lighting.

“Let’s fix the lights first. Because this is rough.” He sat back up. “Got anything close enough to candles?”

Lance motioned over to the closet, rubbing circles into his cheeks. “Up there.”

Keith went to retrieve the goods, spotting them easily enough in spare beauty products and random assortment of things in his closet. He fiddled around with a couple of the hunks of what he assumed was wax, eyeing it in case it did unexpected alien things (as most of their things seemed to do). Lance laughed quietly, “Blow on it.” Keith shot him a look that had Lance simply raise a perfectly done eyebrow at before simply blowing on the unlit wick, fire spring up from the thing.

“ _Cool_.”

He went about setting up several around the room, strategically away from where he assumed they’d hang blankets or place pillows, all while Lance watched him tiredly from his spot on the bed.

As Keith moved to the light switch by the door he glanced over at the other boy, catching him watching. Lance sighed and moved his hand to push back his little bangs growing at his crown. “You’re really go through with this aren’t you?”

Keith smirked, “Yup.” before switching off the lights and leaving the room in a warm glow. Lance watched him blankly for a while before groaning and tossing his head back.

“Fine.”

“That’s our sharpshooter.”

Ten minutes later they had the basis of a pretty solid fort, several blankets (conveniently brought from Keith’s room) had been hung up along the first, creating an almost barrier to the rest of the room, pillows were piled carefully along the edges of the bed, with several jutting out to rest on.

Lance was currently placing small orbs the flickered with their own source of light carefully around the tops and in between the folds of the blankets. Keith had commented that Lance seemed to have a fascination with lights and gotten a tongue stuck out at him in retaliation. Keith watched as Lance fitted one of the last few lights into the sheet, stepping back and into the catch of a folded up blanket, sending him tipping backwards and off the bed.

Heart in his throat, but body already moving in reflex, Keith moved to catch hold of Lance. He successfully caught the paladin, arm securely holding onto the back of his shoulders and the other catching the at length of his legs, Lance’s arms automatically clutching onto the soft material of Keith’s shirt. Both a bit winded they looked at each other with wide eyes, breathing syncing and hearts rapidly beating. Keith tried not to think about how much he appreciated the solidness of muscle in his grasp, instead grateful to have managed to hold onto the other.

Adrenaline still pushing through his body, Keith took a second to ground himself, tracing over the easy lines of Lance’s face. He swept over the startled curve of lips, the slack give of his jaw, up to the tint to his cheeks and back to the blown wide blue eyes. Keith smiled down at the other, laughing at his sudden insistence to be let go. Keith dropped him rather ungracefully turning back to move the offending blanket away when he heard a small gruff _thanks_ from Lance. He did his best to bite back his smile.

Finishing touches done, Lance crawled into bed again, adjusting against one of the propped up pillows. When Keith didn’t move, stuck between wanting very much to join him and starting to feel like he was overstaying his thin welcome; Lance gave him a questioning look and patted the seat next to him. “You coming?”

“Do I really have an invitation to this pretty impressive pillow fort now?” Keith teased slightly. A roll of blue eye and a sarcastic tilt to the tone, “You did help build it, you should at least get a chance to try it out.” Quickly hoping up before the boy changed his mind, Keith settled in next to Lance, watching the flickering orbs above them and choosing to remain quiet until he was ready to speak.

It was a good span of minutes before Lance’s breathing changed, a deep inhale and exhale before sinking further into the pillow. “I’m sorry for worrying you. All of you guys.”

Lance paused and Keith figured this was probably incredibly difficult. Keith was not the most emotionally available of any of them but for someone felt as much and as fully as Lance, he couldn’t imagine what the other was going through.

“We got so caught up in saving the universe and I had complete faith that we’d save everyone out here and would fly home with no problems and everyone would be there waiting, _safe_ and _happy_ that we were back. But the news just really sucked you know? Like my family means everything to me and they’re a huge part of why I’m doing this. And now I’ll never get a chance to tell my abuelita any of this, never see her again. I can’t even go back and pay proper respects to a woman who has been with me through all of my life.” Lance took a breath, shuddering through unshed tears of frustration and sadness and loss.

He shook his head quickly, looking at Keith sadly. “I just can’t help feeling like I should’ve _been_ there. How is my mom doing? My uncles? My aunts? And what if someone else dies? Then I’m still just stuck out here, trying to save the entire universe when my whole world is at home." Lance quiets down a little, voice going soft.

"Sometimes I think Voltron would be fine if I left and went home. Pidge and Hunk would be fine, Allura and Coran would hardly notice I’m gone. Shiro wouldn’t have to tell me to knock it off all the time and you. You could have a moment of peace, saving the universe without having anyone challenging everything you do or provoking you.”

Lance threw his head back against the wall, swallowing down his emotions the best he could, hands clenching at his hips. “Like where is the downside? I could fix everyone’s problems by going home. Isn’t that the best way to help Voltron?”

Keith couldn’t handle it, he knew Lance had been going through a lot on his own. But nothing near as much as he was pouring out to Keith right now. And it _hurt,_ knowing that the warm wonderful man next to him thought they would all be better if he just left and disappeared. Keith wasn’t completely able to grasp having a huge family and feeling like he needed to be there. He understood he needed to know more about his own family but this was heartbreaking to hear from Lance. Lance thought his Voltron family didn’t need him. That Keith didn’t need him, his ridiculous jokes or constant instigation to keep improving, didn’t need him or his amazing ability to think rationally when Keith needed it the most. Keith regretted in that moment never mentioning Lance’s amazing skills to the other before then but made a promise to try and tell the paladin as often as he could.

“Lance. You are an incredibly smart human, but us not needing you is the dumbest thing I’ve heard. We would all be devastated if you left us. Hunk is your best friend, you’re his, he wouldn’t know what to do without you here. Pidge needs you, needs your laughter and affection and your easy way of just being there for her, whatever it is. Allura and Coran are hard to read but they’ve been just as worried as the rest of us. Shiro thinks of you as a little brother, _believe me_ he tells me enough. And I wouldn’t know what to do without you here. Yes it would be quieter, but that doesn’t mean better.”

Keith sighed, fingers rubbing anxiously over his knuckles, hoping he was conveying what he meant. “You keep me in line Lance, whenever I need something brought into perspective you’re there. Not to mention you keep things interesting.” Keith looked over to Lance, who had his eyes shut, looking like he had turned to stone. Keith reached over, hands cautiously running through Lance’s hair, remaining steady when Lance jerked, heading turning to watch Keith’s face, tears at the edge of his eyes. A small smile on his lips and heart skipping around from the truths he had finally been able to tell the other boy.

“I can’t tell you what’s right for you and your family but I can tell you that they are there and still loving you all these light years apart. They’re never going to resent you protecting the universe. How incredible is that? To have gotten you as a son or brother or anything means they are amazing people and they have to know how lucky they are to have you. You will see them again, I will do everything I can to make that happen. We all will Lance.”

Lance heaved a sob, tears and frustrations and worries all pouring out as he began to cry into his shirt. He leaned forward enough to brush against Keith’s shoulder, close enough to ask to be held and far enough to be pushed away. Instantly Keith pulled the other into his chest, hands rubbing against his back and sitting silent through the body wracking sobs.They stayed locked together for a long while, Lance’s tears a steady stream down his face and his hand clutching Keith’s shirt collar. Occasionally Keith would drop his chin and place a small kiss to the top of the other’s forehead. Lance would only cry just a little harder but his grip would turn soft instead of desperate against the other.

Shirt soaked and body heavy with emotions, Lance fell asleep like that, head tucked into the crook of Keith’s shoulder, arm grasping at the shoulder nearest him and a small furrow to his brow. Occasionally there would be a small whine at his lips, teeth clenching in hurt and Keith would simply hold onto Lance tighter, making sure to rub small circles on the longer male’s back. Keith was willing to bet it was the first time in a while the boy had been able to calm down enough to rest. He rested his chin a top the mass of brown hair, content to lie there until Lance woke up.

Everything wouldn’t get better by the time he awoke but Keith was perfectly fine keeping pace with the other boy while he figured everything out on his own. Hopefully knowing he was never alone in this anymore. He had his family at home waiting for him, his team ready to get him back and Keith right there for everything else.


End file.
